Monday 30 September 2013

Post holiday blues

Beautiful B and I have been back from London a week.  Ignoring the first few days when it took me all my time to drag my sorry butt out of bed while it recovered from a lack of sleep, very long days, constant walking and 2 long train journeys in London, I have been unable to find any motivation this weekend either.
 
Beautiful B's new mantra has become "I wish I was still in London."
 
I did have a very important thing to do this weekend, and that was take my mother in law to an electical store to buy a new microwave and phones for her house.  New phones become necessary when her existing ones start to cut out on her during a telephone call.  One would think she has a mobile and so would manage but having called her on it the other day and it taking 3 attempts for her to talk to me before cutting me off I wasn't taking any risks.
 
Driving from one end of town to collect her and then back past my house to take her to the store was a long journey.  Deciding on a microwave took some time; Hubby wanted to go for practical whereas mum was more concerned about the colour (just like I would be)....luckily we found a happy compromise.
 
A set of 3 phones for the house was much simpler so we then completed the weekly food shop and while Hubby installed the new microwave and demonstrated how to use it I unpacked the phones and put them onto charge.  Explaining what to do when charged was taking some time so I said I would call her the next morning. 
 
Another long trip home, shopping unpacked and some light housework and Hubby and I were ready for a rest.  In my case, Tramodol helped until they started to send me a bit cuckoo and I took myself to bed at 9pm having given up trying to stay awake to finish a sentence.
 
Sunday morning required a trip across town to mum's to check the phones were working and to write step by step instructions for her.
 
The rest of Sunday was a rest and again I was in bed by 9pm and managed all of 5 pages of the book I am reading before falling asleep - that isn't saying much considering I am reading it on my iphone and we all know what size they are....
 
Today was back to work and while I got quite a bit done, the after lunch slump was a bit excessive when I actually worried I was going to fall asleep at my desk.  Accounting turned into having a bit of a play on a computer games, payment of bills and a post later and I find I need to find my bed again.
 
Here's to hoping I am more wide awake tomorrow as there is another full day's work ahead, dinner at my mum's and then accounting when I get home......which means dinner at my mum's is the only thing worth looking forward to in that list!
 
Good night all. 

Tuesday 24 September 2013

A small tantaliser

As I must get back to work after a glorious 4 days send in London with Beautiful B I will leave you with a little something. 

Discovered at the end of the Harry Potter Tour:  


Truly awe-inspiring if you are a HP enthusiast. 

Friday 20 September 2013

10 hours and counting

 
10 hours is how long I have left before I get on a train with this beautiful but equally as nutty person as me.....



 to go to London and we are leaving this wonderful and sensible man.....

 
to look after these babies.....
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Having already laughed at how excited I was this morning I am not sure he will be able to cope with the level of excitement he experiences when he gets home and finds me packing my suitcase now that all of the chores are.  I am convinced he will be secretly relieved when I go to bed early in a bid to avoid what could be an inevitable crash at around 5pm tomorrow night....After all, I already know the minions have how I am going to feel at the beginning of the trip and how I am going to feel after I get home just after midnight on Monday night after walking around London for 4 full days and nights.
 
 
Worth it?  Most Definitely!  Thank you my darling Beautiful B for such a wonderful birthday gift.  Please don't spend as much on me next year....a lovely card and a kiss will be great.
 


Thursday 19 September 2013

Excited....much

I'm easily excited and as it was my birthday on Tuesday I was allowed more than usual.  I was spoilt as I spent Monday evening with my 4 best friends drinking cocktails and having a lovely meal and Tuesday evening at the cinema with Beautiful B, Hubby and Ry.  Yesterday was a 12 hour day at work but we won't dwell on that.  Today I am off work.
 
It is 6.41am and this time tomorrow Beautiful B and I will have been on a train nearly 2 hours travelling to our capital, London to see the sites and spend some quality mother/daughter time together.  My daughter spends far to much on me and does not understand the concept of a birthday card and a small gift and this year she visited various members of my family asking for their birthday gift to be money that she could put towards the trip.
 
Like I said truly spoiled!
 
To say I am excited is a slight understatement and although I have drawn up a list of chores to do I have added little extras like a full list of what I need to pack, transferring money to another account to spend in London.....you know, just as a reminder so I can get giddy...okay, in reality I have OCD and live by lists.
 
I want to get through all the mundane chores this morning so that I can get to the important things such as packing this afternoon and have that done before Hubby comes home from work.
 
An early night is called for as our first train is at 4.30am so we will be awake from 3am if we get any sleep at all because it is a bit like Christmas Eve when I was 5 years old and I might just not sleep because I can't wait for morning to come.
 
I kind of need someone to do this....but it's not gooing to work even if someone said it. (My apologises if anyone is offended by the language).

On a completely different note IOS 7 was downloaded for the new iPhone 5 last night.  Beautiful B and I said "Ooooooh" at the same time once we saw the new look. 

I'm now downloading ALL of my music from the iCloud as the computer has been cleaned up and can store that much data and I may have gotten a bit carried away with having a 64gb iPhone because I can now put ALL my music on it and it has 124 items still to download and has been doing it's business for a good 15 minutes already. Is that the longest running sentance I have ever done?  Maybe.  iTunes may well have to carry on doing it's business on it's own while I am taking my mum-in-law food shopping.

Hubby has just rang; having been out overnight at my brothers as it is closer to his snooker veneu, he is now at work.  So far, I have asked if he is at work; yes, can he start work at 7am; yes, even on a Saturday; cue laughing, it's not Saturday, oh yes, it's friday; no it isn't Ribena, it is Thursday, Ha ha, I'm a bit excited; yes you are aren't you?

On that note I am off now to get dressed, drag a brush through my hair and wash my face to go food shopping, then I can rush through my chores to start the all important packing, crossing things off lists, double checking everything is in the suitcase, going through drawers and the bathroom to check I haven't missed anything.....note, must add iPhone charger to the packing list.

You may or may not get random comments and pictures uploaded over the weekend; or I may just be trying to keep up with Beautiful B and her stuffed full itinery.....

 
 
 

Wednesday 18 September 2013

You know you are getting old when.....

.......

This is your pill pot for the week: 


and you have had to ask the chemist to put pills in bottles


because pushing individual pills out of this many packets (and this is only half of them thanks to the pill jars) hurts like hell

You can also be very grateful for the time you were disciplined at 12 years old for being so scared of taking tablets when you tried to dissolve an paracetamol in a glass of juice because damn....live would be a complete nightmare right now had I not learnt how to swallow pills!
...and I would probably have had more than one child and lost my mind.

Tuesday 17 September 2013

What I learned this week

I am slightly more organised this week and am preparing today's post early as work seems to be getting in the way - how dare it!

This week I learned:
  • that 2 weeks back into work and my brain is starting to remember what it should be doing
  • it's hard to remember to follow the doctors instructions of do not use MS Excel when you are an accountant
  • after what has been the 3rd huge flare up of the repetitive strain injury and slipped disc pain it is taking longer for the after effects to wear off - that or I have woken up to the daily pain rather than just accept it as part of a normal day
  • it's not a good idea to do my foot stretching exercises against a pillar at work while talking to a colleague because he will innocently ask (with an amused look on his face) "Ribena, why are you hugging a post?"
  • It's almost impossible to send a personal email during the work day when you have to use voice-activated software
  • The iPhone 5 is fantastic especially the bigger screen as it makes for much easier reading from the Kindle app.  While I wait for my new glasses to be ready it helps avoid the need to move the phone further away to read the screen without the words being blurred which is fabulous because I don't like looking like I am old
  • There are disappointly few iPhone 5 covers available on the UK ebay at the moment
  • SIMS 3 distorts time; it is amazingly easy to sit in front of a computer controlling peoples lives for 3 hours when you could swear you have only sat there for one hour
  • Finally getting my SIMS 3 characters to marry provided me with far too much satisfaction to be healthy....surely
  • Having never been able to keep one house plant alive in over 20 years the feeling of satisfaction at my parrot plant not only being alive but thriving is ridiculously sad
  • I am dire at Wordfeud; that is all I have to say on the matter
So what have you learned this week?

To join in on the What I Learned This Week carnival, simply follow these steps:
 
1. Any time this week, publish your What I Learned This Week post on your blog and comment on my blog hyper linking to your blog.
 
2. Then go and visit Julie’s blog at From Inmates to Playdates, find her latest “What I learned this week” and link up with the Mr. Linky form at the bottom of the post. Please put the link to your POST, not the front page of your blog.
 
3. Then visit the other participants and see what they learned this week.

Monday 16 September 2013

A bit of a busy week

Having just dropped a full can of Pepsi all over my hairdressers floor I figured I'd best keep my hands to myself while my colour takes on my hair!  After all, she is as house proud as me so a sticky wooden floor in her house will drive her mad. 

Yesterday the weather turned from glorious sunshine to wet, cold and very windy. My body has taken that as a sign and decided to make me sneeze all morning with the beginnings of a cold. The timing of the cold is better than it usually is as I will have shifted the majority of it by Friday when Beautiful B and I set of for our country's capital for 4 days of fun. 

As my birthday is Tuesday I have arranged a birthday meal tonight with my 4 best friends so an hour into cocktails and I certainly won't care about this cold.  We are going to my favourite cocktail bar once everyone has arrived.  I know where it is but have no idea what it is called so I asked A as she introduced me too it - she doesn't know either.  This might go some way to explaining why we are such good friends.....
 
Tuesday morning may see me at work with a hangover; at least very tired I suspect.  There will be no time to recover as tomorrow will also see me at the cinema with Hubby, Beautiful B and Ry to see White House Down as a Birthday treat....and then there is Beautiful B's present of the trip to London from Friday to Monday. Again I am being truly spoilt!  
 
Wednesday is a day of work and I truly expect a very early night.  Luckily Thursday is my day off work but I seem to be filling it up with lots of chores and we are only just at the beginning of the working week.  If I am honest, a lot of those chores are on Thursday's list because I have been too lazy to do them this weekend....

The hair appointment was necessary because my hair grows at a rate of knots and the London photos will be bad enough with me so fat in them let alone with a badger streak down my head. 

If my hair gets ruined between now and on the way home I will shake my fist at the sky and growl through my teeth. After all, being able to go to work without having to use the straighteners tomorrow morning would be a novelty. 

Mind you, unless I find my credit card from its safe place when I get home I won't be enjoying cocktails, a lovely meal, cinema or London alongside all that beautiful conversation with those I love most. 

Update:  Credit card safe and sound after 3 hours of searching - in Beautiful B's purse - after I had given it her to pick up my new phone from the post office 4 days ago. One of these days I will grow a brain! 

Thursday 12 September 2013

Car Crash TV



It’s Thursday, Thursday!  And I can’t recall without going and looking when I last blogged but I do know it was sometime last week.  Which is bad!  Really bad!  Though not as bad as me going out and murdering someone so I should put some things in perspective….

I could argue a reasonable excuse if I had been extraordinarily busy this week but I haven’t other than finding myself running from one task to another, attending a meeting in Manchester and travelling always exhausts me even if I am a lightweight and it is only 90 minutes up the road each way, having a melt down or two, wanting to throw the Kindle out of the window as it has inexplicably decided not to work since the last time I used it…oh and sleep.

Let’s also not forget that the X Factor started two weeks ago and if there is nothing else that stops Beautiful B and me in our tracks it is that.  We are obviously at the stages where a few numpty people who are beyond tone deaf having joined in the foray to be this years winner and while that annoys sensible people like Hubby, Beautiful B, me and now Ry find them hilarious….which is kind of mean.

Let’s face it, it’s not nice to take pleasure out of someone else’s failings but they are happy in their own world singing away to themselves in their houses, or in one man’s case, to his beloved cat.  Whom he loved so much he had not only fetched a framed photograph of his muse to the audition but spent the day telling anyone that would listen to him about her and singing to her portrait at the audition. 

Let’s also not forget the man who was a DJ that not only entertained his audience at disco’s with music but also his singing.  Two for the price of one, what more could you ask for?  Alongside a slice of tone deafness added in and bad granddad dancing no less.  This poor man spent the day waiting for his audition while walking around the waiting area looking for a power socket to keep his laptop charged because he had to sing along to it during the audition itself.

We have yet to be serenaded by a person with really bad manners or anger management issues or worse, their parent from whom they obviously inherited their traits from.  That is not so much entertainment as car crash TV.

Sharon Osborne is back and she is hilarious.  The right mix of sweetness when she turns people down but whom can’t keep her face straight in some auditions.  Which begs the question; how do these people continue to sing when a judge is giggling?  Do they stare off into space and pretend the panel is not there or are they too busy imagining the panel naked in order to keep their nerves in check?

Not only are we treated to the X Factor, Gordon Ramsey is on TV at the moment with Hotel Hell; which Ry and Beautiful B are thoroughly enjoying.  A very good programme in the vein of Ramsey’s Kitchen Nightmares but instead of seeing him with a naked chest each episode we see his bare butt getting into a shower.  To be honest people, he doesn’t really do it for me and I really don’t want to see a wrinkled butt on TV at all.   

Now I am in the flow of thinking about TV programmes I cannot recall seeing 24 hours in A&E this week which begs the question; has Hubby deleted the programme from the Sky planner to watch his beloved football? Lord help him if he has!

Sunday 8 September 2013

Time - where has it gone?

Today I find myself realising how little I have posted lately. I haven't been doing much more than working and running around from one thing to another so haven't had much to say if I am honest! It would only bore you.

Really; what can be said about work? I wake up, wash, dress, go to work, spend the day confused, realise it is home time and stare pitifully at the little work I have done, come home, help Hubby cook dinner (Yay, I am able to help finally....) and before I know it my brain is so tired, my body agrees with my brain and the bed starts calling softly to me.
 
I seem to have spent a lot of time this week wondering if I will ever get to the bottom of my 'to do' list but lets face it; if I insist on adding to it every day that is unlikely to happen!
 
Mind you, things like the last BBQ of the season were upon us this week, and as Beautiful B had been complaining there was 'no room in the freezer for "normal" food (read as non-BBQ and something she can put in the oven to heat up for 20 minutes) we felt we should invite my brother, C and A over along with my brother's brother. Yes, I know the family sounds confusing but just go with it and accept there is a genuine reason.
 
C's dad was a chef and had obviously spent some time teaching C's brother some secrets as he made 6 different salads and brought them to the BBQ; all delicious; so delicious I took a portion of each to work the next day because there had been enough salad to feed everyone on our road and 3 of the boys are true carnivores and would rather forgoe salad at a BBQ. Suffice to say, I loved every one and was very grateful to P. In fact, the small amount of coleslaw will be nice on some crackers with some ham for my dinner today.
 
As delicious as they were I think my stomach didn't know what hit it; not having eaten so much salad for well over a year but I am persisting because it is all so beautiful.
 
So as you can tell the BBQ took some of my time up this week. What else? Driving around numerous places to pick up parcels that had been delivered (or rather people had attempted delivery) while I was at work - work gets in the way of soooo many things.
 
Why the UK cannot just have one company to deliver parcels I have no idea; well I do obviously, the question is entirely metaphorical but it makes things so difficult. This week I have had to visit the main post office twice, the small post office about 5 minutes from my house twice, and travel 40 miles to pick up another parcel. As lovely as the parcels were, and I should think so as I had ordered them all, my new iPhone must be stuck at the post office I attempted delivery pick up from yesterday but they had the nerve to be closed on a Saturday! I'm have an empty feeling that my new iPhone is waiting to fill.

What else happened this week? The home computer is much faster so I am less stressed, it plays Sims3 quite happily now which meant I lost 5 hours last night before I realised it was 1.30am. Having told Beautiful B to look on the EA Games website knowing what she would see Ry and I laughed out loud when she saw Sims4 is due for release next year and said "OMG, seriously I can't cope I am that excited!"
 
I took the hoover to be fixed; Hubby said it was whining when he used it. I did a final hoover of the top floor before I took it to the hoover hospital and thought that it wasn't whining as much as it was when I sucked whatever it was that made it whine......
 
I woke up this morning to the washer beeping which tells me something is wrong with it - I have no idea what. The clothes were wet when I opened the washer; luckily when I put it back onto spin and crossed my fingers and toes it seems to have done the trick. I know something is still wrong with it and I fear it is going to cost some pretty pennies before the month is out. 
 
I can see me asking Hubby to take a pair of pliers to the little cap that no-one can get off without brute force to see if anything is blocking that part of the washer in the attempt to make like a mechanic and fix it. I also think I am going to suggest to washer manufacturers that they put that little cap and the pipe behind it higher on the washer so that when the water gushes out of it on opening there is a chance of catching it in a container rather than mop it up of the floor with the biggest towel I can find in the house.
 
Later today we are taking Hubby's mum out for a meal so all the DIY I have to attempt before I go out will be rewarded nicely.  Pity the sweet shop 30 seconds away from the pub does not open on a Sunday.

Thursday 5 September 2013

At last a day off

Okay, I agree I have only been back at work 8 days but I am so glad that today is my non-working day. Though I could have slept a little longer today because I was dreaming about winning a ticket to meet the boys from Supernatural! I preferred that much more than the one where I was arguing with my sister! 

I have been missing a while, missing a few posts because work has been hard, hard on my brain after being at home for 5 weeks. My ability to understand what I need to do with any given task has been in slow motion, and even more so getting the work done. I am getting there though probably slower than my bosses liking as well as my own. 

All of that means that I haven't had the energy to blog in the last week. By the time I get home I need a direct escalator upstairs to bed.  I still shouldn't be doing any jobs at home but i keep cheating and bargaining with Hubby to do little things before i lose my mind.

My walking is getting better after my podiatrist fit me up with all sorts of insoles and heel raisers as well as instructions to complete exercises more times a day than I care to. I can at least get downstairs each morning without ouching and arghing as loudly downstairs. My hands can do a little bit more now though it did take me an hour to change the bedding last night.

Beautiful B has been off work for a couple of days and done some cleaning around the house for me to my delight so I don't have as much of that to do today but when Hubby says the Hoover is making a funny noise you know it needs a tune up at the shop so I will add that to the to do list for today.  

I am crossing everything hoping the weather stays nice for tonight. I know autumn is here, we even had mist yesterday morning, but as long as the rain holds off the mountain of meat in the fridge will go on the BBQ at about 5.30pm. It may be cool enough for a fire pit, something we couldn't use with all the summer BBQs because it was too hot.  I just LOVE a fire pit, I could toast in front of one of those for hours catching up with best friends and family. Of course the most important thing on my to do list according to Hubby is to buy and cool the beer ready for this evening. 

On a different note I have just been sat here watching Beautiful B get ready to cycle to work. Having listened for to many months for my liking to 'I will buy one next payday' from her I insisted on taking her out for a cycle helmet yesterday (naturally she wanted a coat too) as I am scared to death of her being knocked off that bike.  

You would think, as a nurse in training, she understands the dangers but it took a programme that showed the devastating injury and 5 minute from death situation of a teenager on a bike to bring it home to her just how easily an accident can happen and the repercussions.  That shows that despite all of her training she still has that indestructible perception, 'it will never happen to me' that so many teenagers have.  

So today she is off to work with a black cycle helmet with pink flashes and a reflective pink wind proof and water-proof jacket. Yay for me!  As much as I have lived in fear of that phone call making it real for our kids rather than forcing them to wear something they don't want to works better, especially when they can be stubborn teenagers. Sometimes I wish she was still 4-5 years old when she just did what I told her.